Thursday, April 17, 2014

Crescent City Sketches, II

Even the mornings are hot in the Crescent City. On Bourbon Street the
humidity congeals into a thick stew of smells – piss and vomit and
alcohol and the rot of the city, all stale and stinking. Through this
stew he walks as the sun crests the buildings. Across the corner a
man hoses the vile spillage of the night before from the stoop and
the sidewalk and into the sewer. He smiles and waves at the man and
walks on. Down the street, past cabarets and sports bars, all quiet
in the morning light. The girls are gone, at home in their beds still
asleep or bleary eyed as they search for their glasses, their hair
tousled and their faces unpainted. Gone too are the men who stood in
the streets hawking the lewdness and competing for a crown of
unchastity in language as they sought to draw passersby in beyond the
doors of the windowless buildings. No neon signs blaze out the
promise of skin and cheap liquor. No street preachers stand in the
way decrying the blackness of the sins the creep and crawl through
the glow of the night lights. Only a few tourists wander onto and off
of the street, peering at the strangeness of Bourbon street with no
bourbon.

He walks on, past Toulouse Street, and then right on St. Peter's.
Rainbow colored flags line the opposite side of the street. On his
right Pat O'Brien's sleeps on. At length he emerges into Jackson
square. The palmists and the readers of Tarot line the fence around
the park, mingled with the street painters and jewelry stands. A few
tourists climb the steps into St. Louis Cathedral. He joins them,
working his way around the building carefully, taking in the art and
stopping now and then to whisper a prayer to one of the saints. On
the way out he slips a five dollar bill into the box and lights a few
candles for his grandparents. Back in the sun he turns his feet back
to the hotel, and the shuttle, and the airport, and home.